I'm an ow

[fuckitanyway]

I'm in love with a married man. He's my boss.

I am also married and have a lovely life. I love my husband and children. He doesn't hide the fact he loves his family and his wife.

I'm a member of mumsnet for about 7 years now - I'm not trolling - Friday night bumsex, Pom bears etc.

I'm not going to make the bazillion apologies I'm supposed to and know I should because it's ridiculous. I'm mortified, ashamed, I feel such a complete fucking moron at times. I keep doing it - so it's inexcusable and pointless and disingenuous to try rationalise it.

No one plans on leaving anyone. He's 24 years older than me.

It started one year and four months ago and now has run away with me.

I have attempted to post this a million times. I was too much of a coward.

I don't know what to do.

I'm sorry to anyone I've hurt. Could you help me? I understand and accept I'll be flamed.

as to the second paragraph of my post clearly that is hard to achieve when the state still thinks social engineering is part of it's mandate and makes martial status a political issue.

There is a thread at the moment about getting divorced after a very short marriage, and the general consuensus on there seems to be that there is undue focus on the wedding as opposed to the marriage and that even if people have been together for years marriage does seem to change relationships. I suppose what you are looking for in a partner in your 20's is not always what adds up to good husband material. This is where my vies begin to come into conflict with others. I think if you can keep that 20ish person alive in your marriage in your 40's and beyond and acknowledge the need to grow and develop but also do not denigrate the importance of fun, flirtation, sex and keeping your individual wow factor you are in a better position.

I did show DH this thread and the description of the "companionable marriage" he said he didn't want to live like that and pretended to be a sad duck.

numpty wrote personally i find it hard to believe people leave good marriages on a whim I don't think they do it on a whim - but I do think that the mechanism that happens is as follows.

person in good marriage (acknowledged on all sides) meets new person and has huge sexual attraction - somehow allows a crossing of appropriate boundaries (not necessarily sexual) and then they begin to see their marriage through 'new eyes'. Then they decide it was not a good marriage, they convince themselves they were living a lie? - or do they realise they were living a lie? By that time they have generally made a leap out of the marriage so that they are not actually willing to do anything to repair what might be wrong in it. The OW / OM is the catalyst - but like a chemical reaction once the catalyst is added it's pretty hard (sometimes impossible) to restore the situation to what it was - even though it might have been perfectly stable before that.

My h of 24 yrs met the OW, left, divorced me and married the OW in around 13 months. He can do all the reinventing of history he wants but as far as I am concerned it was not a bad marriage, it was a good marriage that had weathered some bad patches and I fully expected it to weather some more.

but the catalyst would be inert in a happy marriage with good communication and mature individuals genuinely committed to one another.

the particular of your situation only you can know of course but from outside in the obvious answer is that you and he saw things differently. what you saw as good enough he didn't. there kind of is no objective reality in something like a relationship - only how the parties feel about it. you and he felt differently about it. neither of your 'feelings' are the objective reality.

the catalyst would be inert in a happy marriage with good communication and mature individuals genuinely committed to one another

Not necessarily. But the catalyst does not make people cheat. It might make them look at their individual circumstances differently. It might make them re-evaluate their goals, their expectations, their desires. It might make them chose to end a relationship that they were genuinely happy in so that they can explore new relationships freely.

But it is not the reason for cheating. Cheating is a decision taken in order to try and maintain both relationships, of which neither can then be entirely happy.

I also disagree that the catalyst is inert in a happy marriage. That is not a realistic view of a long term happy marriage.

I agree with fairenuff that whatever the catalyst is, the person who goes on to have an affair does not just sleepwalk into it. It is a conscious decision to choose to go a certain way when the road forks, however much the offender may deny.

so an attractive person showing an interest in your spouse is always gonna screw a marriage? doesn't say much for marriage if that were the case.

i'm a relatively attractive woman ergo i've always had other people showing interest in me when in a relationship. it's definitely been inert for me and not a catalyst. this is going down the, we'd have bee fine if that evil temptress hadn't turned his poor weak head line imo.

short of living on a desert island there's always going to be other attractions or attracteds in the picture.

No it isn't going down that line of thought at all.

What you are continually overlooking Numpty in your posts is the concept of individual responsibility and determination. A marriage is not an entity that of itself has the power to deter threats to it. Only the individuals in it can do that. And no OW or OM has the power to threaten anyone else's fidelity unless a person makes an individual decision to allow it.

If you've (like me) seen various people off at the pass, that's because of you and your individual decisions.

Blaming relationships on their own gives way too much power to them and infantilises the people in them and the choices they make. We are not just the sum of the relationships we are in. We all have individual responsibility and our most intimate relationship is not the only thing that defines our life choices.

Numpty: "so an attractive person showing an interest in your spouse is always gonna screw a marriage?"

No. That is an absurd extrapolation and nowhere have I said that.

"this is going down the, we'd have bee fine if that evil temptress hadn't turned his poor weak head line imo."

Another absurd extrapolation particularly since I have stated the exact opposite, that embarking on an affair is a conscious decision on the part of the adulterer.

"short of living on a desert island there's always going to be other attractions or attracteds in the picture."

You got this one right! PS I am attractive too but guess what, haven't strayed despite being married 11 years because I have a pulse AND a conscience.

no - it's not about any old attractive person is it? my ex had a lot of close relationships with women over the years we were together, none of them were a threat to the marriage. It's not about the attractiveness or not of other people, This particular woman is not that attractive to be honest (she was younger and thinner, she's still younger ). But at this particular time in the marriage, was the catalyst for a total re-evaluation of the marriage in that she offered a different vision of a future to the one with me - which involved children leaving home, retirement, grandchildren etc. The future with her was a vision of freedom, foreign travel and a very much "superior" (in his eyes) social circle. Of course we may have had different views on whether or not the marriage was happy, but I can only go on what was reported to me, not only from him, but from his parents, siblings and friends.

I won't try to argue at all for the classic MLC - but I will say that I know the death of someone close to him played quite a significant part in this. He said that after that he asked himself "do I want to be living this life in 30 yrs?" and his answer was 'no'. Mine would have been 'yes'. He met her at that point so the conditions were right. I still don't think it means he was not happy up to that point, just that things started to shift and change. Reading other stories on MN I think that is not uncommon.

No it's not the attractive person, it's what you do in response to your feelings of having romantic/lustful thoughts. Being tempted is not the issue, most people will from time to time come across people they find they are emotionally or physically attracted to, just most of the time it doesn't lead to anything more than a passing thought (or two).

That reevaluating everything you currently have and determining it crap is a part of the processing that seems to go on when people decide to have affairs/cross the line, and sure sometimes it's just a matter of perspective, but if you talk to those who have affairs they deeply regret they seem to go through very similar thinking in terms of downplaying all that is good, even though in retrospect they know that there really weren't major unresolvable problems, and that their partner is actually someone they deeply care about.

It's not as simple as humdrum life, meet someone, feel sexually/emotionally attractive, realise current relationship is crap, havea good time with new person, leave and the life is rosy for everyone.

I also think you are being far too simplistic Numpty in your assessment that 'people don't leave good marriages on a whim'. Yes they do. I know people who freely admit that. We must never under-estimate the power of infatuation and lust and its addictive qualities. I read somewhere that the chemical hit is the closest thing to insanity a person with generally sound mental health is likely to face in their lifetime. It compromises decision-making and objectivity. We were discussing this downthread and how it's the wrong approach to assume that people on the brink of an affair make rational, thought-through assessments of risks and consequences. When addicted, that's not likely to happen.

I agree, Leaven.

In fact, if we take a step back and accept that it is normal to have a strong attraction for another person outside of marriage, then it allows us to recognise the beast for what it is i.e. a fleeting insanity that may not be worth throwing an otherwise solid relationship away for, rather than an enduring cosmic connection that destines you to be with the other person because you think you cannot possibly have these feelings if the marriage is strong.

Being realistic about these feelings is first and foremost a form of immunising yourself from their effects when they hit you.

Dead right.

I was on another thread a while ago and couldn't believe posters' naivety about this very thing. There was this quaint belief that if you're in a happy marriage, even if you fancy someone else you don't need to put in any safeguards in place, like saying 'no' to that after-work drink or going to their room when away on business. I've had to do that several times, because I'm not made of stone and completely unassailable, anymore than most people who enjoy others' company, like sex and feel lust. A world away from the Lord and Lady Whiteadders of fiction in fact .

It's about knowing yourself and your human frailties I think. Maybe not taking yourself too seriously too and thinking that just because you're outwardly a pillar of respectability and old enough to know better, you're not dead!

We have gone back to the discussion of something I don't feel often exists with affairs - the perfectly happy marriage which goes wrong when the attractive other comes into the life of one of the spouses.

The scenario given in a previous post is in fact indicative - wife looking forward to retirement and spending time with grandchildren, OW planning a life of travel. Maybe the husband was already feeling this was not very exciting, maybe he was already thinking that this was not what he wanted for the next 30 years but didn't want to rock the boat - i.e. wife happy, husband not. Not an example from one of my friends, but from a colleague of DH. Husband has been trying to raise certain issues for nearly 5 years now, constantly brushed off, told they will be discussed when he has done this and that and the other. He was quite astonished to hear his wife say at a party before Christmas how well they got on because he is dreading his retirement and wondering if he is brave enough to exit the marriage at 65. Couples spend little time together if one or both are working full time, it is quite hard to be sure of the feelings of your partner.

but i don't see how that contravenes what i said - your visions of and dreams for the future differed - what you wanted and what he wanted forked off and no longer alligned. she wasn't the catalyst but the reality of having different needs, wants and expectations. what you wanted in the future and were content with he didn't. also the communication presumably wasn't there as he didn't talk to you about it. the fact he didn't talk to you about doesn't mean it didn't exist until she came along but just that he didn't feel able to talk to you about it for whatever reason - that honest intimacy that leads to sharing one's inner world had gone for him for whatever reason even if you were fine and saw it all as 'fine'.

maybe 'fine' didn't seem enough to him and a bereavement was the reminder that he only had one life.

though clearly it would have been better if he had ended the marriage with those realisations rather than having an affair.

though maybe those realisations didn't seem tangible enough or... didn't give enough impetus to do much more than mull and wonder and try to straighten his head out etc whereas that plus being attracted to someone else who shared those feelings and the same vision enabled action.

not justifying affairs but i don't buy the everything was absolutely fine until she came along

One of the things I find most odd about some people, is the hard and fast view about whether something 'exists' or not, if it's outside of their own experience. Especially in the field of human relationships, where things are rarely neatly packaged into a box and not everyone behaves the same way as their counterparts, has the same relationships as everyone else or thinks and feels like everyone else either.

What's even odder is when they continue to say 'I don't believe it exists' when lots of people are telling them that yes it does exist, it happened to them, or someone close to them.

In my time on mumsnet, I've read loads of threads from people who say they are in good marriages but are having affairs. I've met people in real-life who've said the same. This leads me to conclude that if so many people are saying something, there must be something in it and they aren't lying.

But in a more general sense- and this only applies to mumsnet I'm afraid, I've seen posters insist that 'all men wank' or 'all men use porn' despite known regular male posters coming on to say that they don't. I was on a thread a few months ago where several posters were talking about working for firms that had policies in place forbidding partner relationships in the management hierarchy, only for one poster to say that because neither her nor her husband had heard of it, this was either rare or non-existent.

I do wonder why this sort of bull-nosed denial goes on.

Getting back on topic, I find this myopia about marriages having extraordinary deterrent powers as absurd as if someone said no-one becomes an alcoholic or drug dependent if they are in a good marriage. Or even, no-one would ever be violent or cruel to a partner if the relationship was good from their side.

Not having anything particularly invested in such hard and fast views, my take on this is that affairs happen for all sorts of reasons. I've known people have affairs as an exit from a lousy marriage and/or emotional/physical abuse, I've known people who've had affairs and had good faithful subsequent relationships with the OW/OM and I've known people have 'bit of fun' affairs like the one the OP's describing, despite being in a good marriage and not wanting to lose it. I'd never be so presumptuous to say something doesn't exist or can't happen just because it's outside of my own relatively small reach in the world though.

And if despite hearing from people who told me that it did and I was still insisting it didn't, I'd have to question why I was having such difficulty with other people's reality. There's usually a reason for that after all.

And of course one very important reason people have affairs is that they are not getting any sex at home.

I think that in some cases marriages can be healthy but the individual within it who seeks an affair is not necessarily in emotionally good shape. And i agree that it is no different in that sense to someone who uses alcohol or drugs to attempt to self medicate. And that, like an affair, can end up damaging bystanders.

I also agree with Leavenheath and blueshoes about being realistic about being attracted to other people.

I would love to know more about the OP here - how long she has been married, whether she has suffered from emotional problems prior to the affair, whether this is the first instance of a strong attraction to a work colleague.

numpty wrote not justifying affairs but i don't buy the everything was absolutely fine until she came along I don't think I've explained myself very well I think what I am trying to say is that it's actually impossible to know whether or not everything was fine because when the catalyst comes into the frame either it causes the person to realise that they have been 'living a lie' - and were not, in fact, happy, or they want to believe they had not really been happy because they have to justify what they have done.

All the original partner has to go on is what they are being told, both in words and actions - so if it all seems to be OK why would they not be shocked when the partner says they are leaving.

higgles example is interesting because here there is no catalyst needed, the H knows he is not happy - but I wonder if he is actually seriously trying to engage his DW? if she knew this was a 'deal-breaker' would she genuinely brush it off? I don't know - but I suspect not.

catsrus - i would guess that what you're dealing with in those scenarios is a coward who was never very good at being emotionally honest with themselves let alone with their partner and one who just swallowed their feelings or disatisfactions rather than did anything about them like actually talking and risking honesty and change. i think someone who is emotionally mature and honest and brave enough to discuss things and has enough respect and love for their partner to do that wouldn't get to the point of the affair iyswim. maybe everything 'i wasn't happy' etc that the partner is saying after the affair is true but they were never willing to take responsibility for that or do anything about it or discuss it with their spouse until they had an easy way out lined up and well i have to tell her now kind of shove.

i think we're almost saying the same thing but i'm saying the 'state' was there first even if they'd never said it out loud and had been pretending all was hunky dory whilst waiting consciously or otherwise for an exit that would be easy and make them feel they didn't have any choice rather than take the bloody wheel of their own life.

so i guess that is a catalyst but i don't think it's the creator of the conditions for it to happen of itself itms. but maybe weak people can't do anything on their own and take control and responsibility for their lives and their feelings so have to have someone and something else to leap to in order to actually change anything?

And of course one very important reason people have affairs is that they are not getting any sex at home.
Yes I think it must be incredibly frustrating and lonely if a partner no longer finds you desirable and wants to have sex with you. Despite what I've said about some folk being over defined by their sexual appeal, our sexual identity is nevertheless a part of our make-up and I can see how it could lead to low self-esteem and resentment if that's threatened. I don't think that's a reason for an affair though, or at least not the only one. Aside from all the other risks, the big personal risk with that one must be getting sexually rejected again by the OM/OW if he/she wants out at some point.

If there is a relatively well off middle aged man havig an affair with a much younger woman presumably he will be feeling pretty confident about finding someone else if the first OW leaves him. A lot of men seem to have very high opinions of their own attractiveness! I'm not sure how it works the other way round as I can't think of any younger females I know at present ( as I'm in my 50's) who have taken this path.